


if you die in a quantum splinter do you die in real life

by pearlweb



Category: Rift (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 04:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20222188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlweb/pseuds/pearlweb
Summary: i have a lot of old RIFT fic that i never posted anywhere. this one contains no actual OCs, just generic Ascended doing some prime timeline-hopping and Hylas Aelfwar being himself. enjoy. couldn't think of a good title. based on the Primeval Feast instance





	if you die in a quantum splinter do you die in real life

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on the EU side as Deimanus, i am very friendly :^)

The moment he realised his magic was not going to get him out of this was the same moment dragon blood touched Twyl’s lips. It was also the moment a weaker man would have despaired, but he was not a weaker man, and he did not give valuable time to despair when there were plans to be made.

Hylas had watched Twyl as he cackled and raised something wet and dark and dripping through his fingers, triumphant and lacking even a scuff on his leafy armour. He watched - partly in horror, partly with a rising, sickened rage - as Twyl beat his wings, fluttered up onto the vast corpse that still bled onto the floor, and planted himself neatly on Greenscale’s upturned belly to address the crowd.

Emerald blood pooled around the feet of the victors and soaked into the bodies of the fallen as he spoke, and despite everything he’d worked for, Hylas found himself taking a step back.

They all prepared themselves for a speech that never came. Twyl eagerly sank his teeth into the dragon’s heart, and as he opened glowing green eyes, Hylas knew he was looking right at him.

He chewed. Swallowed. Hylas kept moving, picking his way carefully backwards through the crowd, his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword.

“It seems the noble Aelfwar prince himself could not stop me,” Twyl declared, only now taking on the theatrics they expected, now that there was no time to interrupt the important part. “Wasn’t this  _ your _ idea, Prince Hylas? Aren’t you proud to see it come to fruition? I was surprised when you came out of hiding, you know. Some had a hunch you were dead, just like the rest of House Aelfwar, but I knew better. You had to come and challenge  _ me  _ for the fate you missed out on.”

Green blood spilled down Twyl’s chin as he grinned, and the veins of his wings began to darken. The hue of his wings shifted, from orange to emerald green, like autumn doubling back on itself. Unnatural.

_ “Kill him.” _

Hylas ran, then. Too many leering faces that turned on him all at once, too many raised blades and spells hissing past him. A huge, familiar axe sinking into the ground where he’d been just a second before. He was not concerned with being outnumbered, but it was the green-wet grin of Fae Lord Twyl, motionless and confident on top of the felled dragon, that let Hylas know he had failed.

Anger gave Hylas a surge of energy he thought he’d spent, and this was what kept him running after he vaulted a broken wall and skidded down the sheer Redoubt hillside. How  _ dare  _ he? How dare Twyl take what was rightfully his, and how dare the Fae Lord not even afford the Prince of House Aelfwar a one-to-one fight? Hylas was beyond insulted, and as a bolt of crackling life energy burned past too close for comfort, the feeling only worsened as he realised his time was probably up.

He would die here, in Redoubt, at the hands of underlings and henchmen. Unskilled fae and drunk boglings would bring down the last and greatest of the Aelfwar, and perhaps in the future Twyl was building, history would not even remember his name.

Hylas felt a blade catch his thigh as he approached the end of Redoubt’s fortifications, and though the cut wasn’t deep, the pain gave him a flash of clarity. There was no point in running any more - not when there was nothing else to run to. He skidded to a halt, span to face his aggressors with his heels planted firmly in the dust, and raised his sword.

He would go down fighting, then, like a noble warrior should. Like Shyla had. Let this be one last planar thorn in Twyl’s side.

The crowd converged on him like a plague of locusts. The fae were not concerned with his pride; as a bogling latched onto the prince’s free arm and bit, a grimacing face appeared at his shoulder as its owner attempted to garotte him from behind. The final fall of House Aelfwar would not be dignified.

Hylas lunged with renewed determination and skewered a bogling, pausing only to flick its body to the ground before executing a calculated roll. The pixie on his back let out a shriek as it found itself on the floor, and Hylas quickly turned to pierce it with his blade. He would kill as many of them as he could.  _ Victory where you can get it; revenge where you can’t. _

It felt like much later when he heard heavier, louder footsteps behind him, and the clinking of plate and mail. Not more pixies, then. Hylas gave a hoarse cry, forcing his aching arms to swing his sword in a wide arc, giving him enough space to turn and face the interlopers - and his eyes widened.

Perhaps they’d kill him. That was his first thought, but with a battlecry from the leader, the Ascended party’s weapons were put to better use cutting a swathe through the attacking fae instead.

Hylas soon found himself back-to-back with their mage, the air around them displacing as earthy armour tore itself from the floor and clung to her body. To his left, a Kelari’s hands crackled with flame and moved towards him, making Hylas falter for just a second - but as the cleric’s palm grasped against one of Hylas’ worse wounds, the prince could feel the planar infection burning away and the edges begin to knit.

Pointless. He was dying either way, there wasn’t _ time. _ But it did give him the realisation that these Ascended might be able to do the task he could not - and between strikes of his sword, he began to weave a spell.

“Not me,” he ground out at the Purifier, grabbing a pixie by the neck and helpfully holding it while an Ascended impaled it on a spear. “Explosives - there!”

To their added merit, these Ascended could follow instructions. The warrior - probably their ringleader, Hylas decided - gave out a call, and that was that. Purifiers could use their flame for other things than searing wounds closed, if they were clever.  


The blast made his ears ring. It shattered the last dregs of magic he’d been counting on to keep him alive longer, and with a lurch Hylas felt his legs give way. He caught himself with his sword just in time, but there he stayed. He was not getting up from this one. (Not alive, anyway. He was not foolish enough to rule out undeath somewhere down the line.)

As the sound of the explosion and the whining in his head began to fade, Hylas took a gasp of air and wasted no time in explaining the plan that had been forming since the Ascended had joined him in the fight.

Uneasy, they looked at each other. The bloodied Prince of House Aelfwar did not repeat himself - he just waited, hanging onto his sword hilt with shaking hands. From here he had a view of his own bent knee and the ground beneath him, stained with green and red, and he wished with some degree of irritation that they would make up their minds-

The end of a metal blade slid into view, quite suddenly, and Hylas made an undignified noise through gritted teeth.

The warrior grunted and pulled his sword from Hylas’ back. It was a clean jab. The blade was probably enchanted - he didn’t remember seeing much of his blood on it. Didn’t matter much now.

“It don’t feel right,” someone said. Hylas barely recognised the mage’s voice. “Remember him in Stillmoor? He put up a hell of a fight. This ain’t proper.”

“Not sure he cares about being proper,” the warrior responded curtly, as the prince belatedly crumpled to the floor. “The way he said it, it sounds like we’re in for some covert stuff. Sneaking around and choking boglings.”

“Sneaking and choking is as much my favourite as the next assassin, but I agree with her. Something smacks wrong about this whole thing.”

“Too late now. Anyone got a better plan than the elf prince?”

Hylas’ soul was not listening; he was still winding himself firmly into the web of anchors he’d laid in place before being slain. Too much was pulling at his attention at once. They’d have to wait for him for a moment.

The Ascended shuffled their feet. The answer was no, no one had a better plan, but this was still Prince Hylas of all his infamy, and maybe there were ulterior motives. No one bothered to say it out loud.

“Good.” The warrior rolled his eyes. “Now wait for his signal. The sooner we snap Twyl in half, the sooner we can get back to the Telara where we killed them both the first time. Just because we don’t like the plan doesn’t mean it’s not our best shot.”

The Purifier sighed, stepping forwards. He nudged the corpse with his boot, turning it over, and knelt. He reached down to close his eyes, and muttered a prayer - obviously only half-learnt, all in unfamiliar wording, and he’d left out the parts about Tavril, but Hylas recognised an attempt at a High Elven death rite when he heard it.

Above, the spirit of Hylas Aelfwar glared down, and his lip curled.

“Do not presume what I would have wanted, Ascended.”

The Kelari flinched, hurriedly standing up and dusting off his chainmail as he flashed the ghostlike Hylas an awkward look. “Oh.” A beat. “Er, sorry about that, friend.”

Despite himself, Hylas did not have it in him to be angry at the party of displaced Ascended. His anger was for Twyl along, and he focused on the next step and the party of heroes found themselves glamoured into the shapes of the fallen fae around them.

“Alright,” said the assassin, not pausing to admire his new, delicately-glittering fairy wings, “let’s go. These fae won’t choke themselves.”

The ex-Prince Hylas gestured to the dusty hillsides ahead. “Be quick, Ascended.  _ I  _ have all eternity, but that does not mean I wish to watch you tarry until the Fae catch you. Keep moving.”

As the group set off, Hylas focused on his next spiritual anchor, ignoring the steady pull from what he could only assume was real,  _ proper  _ death. It was strange to feel so optimistic. Perhaps shuffling off the mortal coil had given him a new perspective.

Hylas Aelfwar waited by the altar, and tried not to think of Shyla - yet. He’d have time, later, once this task was over or the Ascended were driven back. He would have plenty of opportunity to assess what he’d done in life. Maybe that was the point.

Eternity was a long time to think of what to say.


End file.
